Why shouldn't Marissa Mayer look hot?

By Peggy Drexler, Special to CNN

Updated 1513 GMT (2213 HKT) August 23, 2013

Marissa Mayer: Proud geek10 photos

Marissa Mayer: Proud geek – Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer's photo spread in Vogue magazine has proven controversial, with some saying it detracts from the 3,000-word article that focuses on her successes and vision in a male-dominated tech world. The profile describes Mayer as an "unusually stylish geek." Take a look at other photos of her through the years.

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Marissa Mayer: Proud geek10 photos

Marissa Mayer: Proud geek – Mayer was always an exceptional student, excelling in biology and chemistry. "When I was first at Stanford, I was very certain I was going to be a pediatric neurosurgeon," she says. However, a summer at youth science camp resulted in a change in thinking, and the path that would eventually lead to Google and later Yahoo.

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Marissa Mayer: Proud geek10 photos

Marissa Mayer: Proud geek – In December 2009, Mayer married Zachary Bogue, a private-equity executive a year her junior.

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Marissa Mayer: Proud geek10 photos

Marissa Mayer: Proud geek – While Mayer describes herself as an introvert, she says her husband, who she met after they were set up, is the flip side of the coin. "He finds social situations very energizing and for me, I find them very intimidating and draining."

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Marissa Mayer: Proud geek10 photos

Marissa Mayer: Proud geek – Mayer accepted the National Design Award on behalf of Google in October 2008. But public speaking and social events haven't always been easy, says Mayer: "I'm a really shy person. ... Yet at Google, my colleagues would never believe that; because here, I'm outspoken because I feel comfortable and I feel like I can express my opinions and find my voice."

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Marissa Mayer: Proud geek10 photos

Marissa Mayer: Proud geek – Early days at Google, Halloween 2004. After agonizing over 14 job offers, she chose to join Google in 1999 because, she says, "I felt like the smartest people were there, I felt like it was a risk and I felt like it was something I wasn't really prepared to do."

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Marissa Mayer: Proud geek10 photos

Marissa Mayer: Proud geek – Mayer says every new product raises users' expectations. Here, Mayer is at Grand Central Station in New York for the launch of the Transit feature on Google Maps in 2008.

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Marissa Mayer: Proud geek10 photos

Marissa Mayer: Proud geek – When she can, Mayer enjoys outdoor and sporting activities. She says, "I did a cross-country ski race once, it was 56 kilometers long, which is like 32 miles and I did it without training. ... I actually was slower on the cross-country skis than I would have been if I walked."

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Marissa Mayer: Proud geek10 photos

Marissa Mayer: Proud geek – Mayer says gender doesn't matter if you have a passion for what you do. "I'm surrounded by all kinds of other people who are just as passionate and that passion is gender neutralizing."

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Marissa Mayer: Proud geek10 photos

Marissa Mayer: Proud geek – Pictured in 2013, Mayer has often been named one of the most powerful women in business. "I didn't set out to be at the top of technology companies," she told Vogue magazine. "I'm just geeky and shy and I like to code. ... It's not like I had a grand plan where I weighed all the pros and cons of what I wanted to do—it just sort of happened."

It's also not surprising that the conversation about Mayer's Vogue piece -- the first major profile she agreed to since becoming CEO of Yahoo -- has remained squarely focused on how she looks in the accompanying photograph.

Most criticisms, my own included, have examined Mayer's role in this: At a time when women in the workplace desperately need role models, why did she allow herself to be depicted in a manner so far removed from most women's realities?

On CNN.com, Pepper Schwartz writes that "a significant number of women ... were less than thrilled at the idea of one of the few women of real power still needing the affirmation of a Vogue fashion shoot," and "here's a woman who has made it to the top because of her brains, does she still need to self-validate by having a beautiful fashion gig?"

Peggy Drexler

But what's so inexcusable about a woman wanting to look her best? How is it self-validating to let a respectable magazine profile you in the way they know how? Or is the issue more about the audacity of a powerful woman sitting for a portrait that might be -- gasp -- flattering?

The truth is that we can't blame Mayer, or Vogue, for society's obsession with, and response to, appearance. Women, especially women who happen to be both beautiful and brilliant like Mayer, are very often reduced to, or at least measured by, their looks. This was a reality before Mayer's Vogue spread, and it will be a reality after. The debate over Mayer's culpability in agreeing to be sexed up for a fashion magazine implies that she has some power over the fact, some ability to change the truth, that looks matter, and that pretty people succeed more.

Because they do, with or without the "affirmation of a Vogue fashion shoot."

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And in her groundbreaking 1999 book, "Survival of the Prettiest," Harvard Medical School psychologist Nancy Etcoff argues that good-looking people get better jobs, are better paid, and have an easier time in life. The evidence is in: Evolutionarily speaking, pretty people win.

Mayer's looks likely helped her get ahead in some manner throughout her career; as such, it's unreasonable to expect that she'd do anything but agree to play them up for a national audience.

For women, who are faced with any number of disadvantages in the workplace, why not use what you can? That's not to say Mayer isn't brilliant or hardworking; it's not an either/or in business or in life. But it's unrealistic, and unfair, to expect that Mayer wouldn't sit for a photo that wasn't expected to turn out at least somewhat flattering. That's not self-validation, or even narcissism. It's nothing more than completely human.